India's youngest CEO Ranjan Das of SAP, India ... - Posoowa

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the magical 10% increase in GDP per annum. Leaving out
China, the increased growth in other South East Asian
countries survived on the basis of increased exports and
outsourcing. All this was based on stock exchange share
market which collapsed in 1980s, India and China are
fortunate that they have very big internal consumer
markets and also possibilities of more foreign direct
investment. Both India and China have a big Diaspora
which came to the rescue of their motherlands during
financial crisis at different times.
6.1 Much Optimism about India: pre and post Global
Banking Crisis: Before the
onslaught of the Banking Crisis, political leaders,
economists, trade specialists were very confident of India
joining soon the “10%” club, and many investors,
industrialists and forecasters were very optimistic about
India’s economic development galloping fast and joining
soon the club of Global Powers also.
China which had an early start with economic
liberalization and advantage of a one party system,
suffered a lot also as a result of slow-down in world
economy. Moreover, many European and North
American investors started feeling the increasing
constraints in China, its not so good human rights record
and limitations as a world knowledge economy. On
comparison, many investors would prefer India due to
its open, democratic process, use of English language, a
large pool of well trained scientists and technologists, a
large and diverse private sector of its own, and increasing
efforts of the Government to improve economic
infrastructure and introduction of still more liberalization
in economic decision-making, legal processes, etc.
Already the Indian entrepreneurs are showing their
hunger to takeover some of the big enterprises in Europe
and elsewhere. At present India is one of the big foreign
investors in the Netherlands. Some Indians are regularly
figuring in the list of world economic and political elites
like the Forbes List and Time’s The World’s 100 Most
Influential People (Nilekeni and A.R. Rahman, (TIME,
May, 2009) etc. Observers, both inside and outside the
country are forecasting that Indian economy will emerge
still stronger after the banking crisis. Time Magazine
states that out of 15 world’s large economies, only two
namely China and India will have positive high growth
rates, in the immediate post banking crisis era. The same
magazine while locating India at No. 50 in the table of
competitiveness, in its study of 3000 companies from
developing countries, suggests that 20 Indian companies
have the potential to be global players in near future.
(Time, October 27, 2008). Economist (London) also
observed that India is likely to come out more successful
from the present economic downturn, as it was hit less
hard by global recession, its industrial production has
perched up and the domestic spending has bounced back
(Astonishing Asian Rebound). EU Trade Commissioner,
Chris Patten, is of the view that “India is unstoppable
‘heavy weight’, ready to take the world by surprise”. Mr.
Vyacheslav Trubinkov, Ambassador of Russian Federation
in India thinks, “post-globalization India has overstepped
its role as a regional power and is now emerging as a global
power”.
7. Indian Scenarios and Visions of a Developed India. In
addition to Indian Planning Commission’s official Long
Term Perspective Plan of India, there have been also other
long term visions of India in the new Millennium. Vision
India 2020, authored by the former President of India,
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Dr. Rajan not only consists of
the overall vision of the country in 2020, but also analysis
and targets of the specific sectors of the economy. The
authors argued that if the Government and others accept
their analysis and targets set by them for different sectors,
India will be a developed nation by the year 2020. But
this scenario has become irrelevant for two reasons: one
it was based on the assumption of continuing the planning
growth rate of 5% per annum and second, it ignores
completely the possible multi-faceted contribution of
Indian Diaspora (Foundation for Critical Choices for
India: A Quarter Century of Service to India, 2008). We,
and some other keen observers of India feel that if the
rate of foreign investment increases faster, the required
economic reforms are introduced soon, economic and
physical infrastructure is updated, the backlog which
India has with regard to basic education, adult literacy,
girls education, environmental sanitation is tackled on
war footing, India can achieve the status of a Developed
nation earlier than 2020, may be by 2015. Based on the
recommendations of the Knowledge Commission,
chaired by Dr. Sam Pitroda, to the Prime Minister,
Government of India has already put their
implementation in the fast track with accelerated
presentation of many legislative measures like right to
education, establishment of a large number of new world
class universities, reform of the legal and trade system,
etc.
7.1 India’s advantages in the Run to Global Status in
Economy: India had been very fortunate in inheriting
at independence, a well developed system of political
and economic governance (Pavan K. Verma, 2004). Few
people know that the second Stock Exchange in the
world was established in Bombay (Mumbai), the first
one was in London. Mumbai was also the second city
in the world to have electricity after Paris and London.
Private banks and Reserve Bank existed for long in
colonial period also, already more than half of the senior
Administrative Cadre was Indianised, a number of well
organized local ownership enterprises existed in major
sectors like textiles, sugar production, iron and steel,
bicycles, tractor and auto industry, tea, coffee and other
plantation products, paper and pulp, basic medicines,
film making, cement, etc. to which, were added
engineering, aircraft, heavy chemicals, fertilizers,
aluminum, copper cables, etc. Already in 1980s, India
was considered one of the top 12 industrialized
countries of the world. India has a tremendous labour
reservoir of unskilled, semi-skilled and highly skilled
labour, a large fleet of engineers of all types, India ranks
3 rd in the world for number of graduates in science and
technology, next to USA and Russia. India’s largest
middle class has also been commented upon by western
experts. The impact of increased consumption of high
price, high quality goods is already seen and with
increase in purchasing power of the rural masses, India
will also be able to sustain the level of economy mostly
on the basis of consumer spending, as in the USA.
Although many industrialized countries in the world
have to face increasing problems of sustaining
expenditure on old age pension and health problems of
aged, India is very lucky that for a long period the
increasing labour market of young and the middle aged
persons, will take care of it without burdening the state
finances too much. Already, India ranks as the 4 th biggest
economy in the world using purchasing power criterion.
The strength of Indian Rupee has also been more or less
stable, and foreign exchange reserve is very high.
Possibilities of outsourcing in manufacturing, service
sector, education and training, research and
development, maintenance of aircrafts, are
considerable, with further economic liberalization, both
indirect and direct foreign investment can increase
further and possibly its status in the world economy can
move to the 3 rd place after US and China by 2050 (Mc
Kinsey Study 2003). Instead of speculating further when
this will happen, we will move to other sectors of global
POSOOWA • NOVEMBER 2009